LETTER TO J. V. STALIN AND M. I. FRUMKIN AND ASSIGNMENT TO SECRETARY

Written:Written on May 15, 1922Published:First published in 1959 inLenin Miscellany XXXVI.

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1976,

      Moscow,Volume 45,

      pages549b-550a.Translated:Yuri SdobnikovTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet ArchiveYou may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

ComradesStalin and Frumkin:

Ithink that we should issue anofficial banon all talks
and conversations and Commissions, etc., on weakening
the foreign trade monopoly.

Ido not agree with Frumkin that state trade will always
be beaten. Throughout the world it is the department stores
that beat everyone else. Yet, in what way are they better
than state trade?

Thereis need systematically to go over tobonusesfor
employees for turnover and profit. Unless this is done the
People’s Commissariat for Foreign Trade (and all of us)
will be a flop. Frumkin does not think about this, and that
is his fault.

Sendthis confidentially to Stalin and Frumkin,
requesting them to return it with a couple of words of comment.
See that it is returned as soon as possible (2–3
days).[1]

[1]Thisletter and also the draft decision of the Politbureau of the
R.C.P.(B.) C.C. confirming the foreign trade monopoly (see
present edition, Vol. 42, p. 419) were written in connection with
Lenin’s receipt on May 15, 1922, of material from N. N.
Krestinsky, R.S.F.S.R. Plenipotentiary Representative in Germany,